1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular lamp including a light guiding plate.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the conventionally known vehicular lamp is constructed so that emitted light from the light-emitting element such as a light-emitting diode is incident on the rear end surface of a light guiding plate and then is emitted from the front end surface of the light guiding plate to the front of the lamp.
Japanese Patent Application'Laid-Open (Kokai) No. 2007-280689, for example, describes a lens component formed on the tear end surface of a light guiding plate provided along a horizontal plane in such a vehicular lamp. In this vehicular lamp, the lens component allows emitted light from the light-emitting element to be incident on the light guiding plate as converging light that converges in the forward direction of the light-emitting element.
The configuration described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) No. 2007-280689 increases the amount of light that is guided in a direction toward the forward direction of the light-emitting element inside the light guiding plate, and thus allows the light guiding plate to appear to be brightly lit when the light guiding plate is observed from the front of the lamp.
However, in the light distribution of the emitted light from the light-emitting element, the light traveling in the forward direction of the light-emitting element typically has the highest intensity. Accordingly, adopting the configuration described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) No. 2007-280689 causes such a problem that when the light guiding Plate is observed from the front of the lamp, only a portion close to the light-emitting element appears extremely brightly lit, and as a result, the light guiding plate cannot be made to appear to be lit in a substantially uniform manner due to this so-called point lighting phenomenon.